Tweed does have that image but it's also an authentic, hard-wearing, working man's fabric a bit like denim in a way. It's worn by the ghillie as much as the laird, or a Harris fisherman on a Sunday hoe-down at church. I love the fact that Harris Tweed is produced by a cottage industry of local craftsmen who produce something really special in a tough environment where there's not much going on except crofting and fishing. You can go smart with tweed or dress down with jeans and a T-shirt and it'll still look good. It's very versatile. A really interesting fabric with endless variations of pattern and hue.

Oh and Bill Clinton used to buy from Stark & Sons. How could I resist?

Harris Tweeds are excellent and last forever. They give a foul odor if they get damp, though (like if you get caught in the rain a bit), but that's because it's natural.

Tweed is a great casual sportcoat fabric. It goes with almost anything, from dress slacks to jeans. It's tough and extremely durable; I have a London Fog tweed overcoat that belonged to my grandfather and father. It's great for travel because it doesn't wrinkle at all, and it hides stains and dirt. It's practical and functional in all seasons and circumstances, because it's warm but it also breathes better than anything.

Everybody should have a nice tweed jacket. It's one of the most useful pieces of clothing one can have. Harris is about the best brand of tweed fabric you can get.

Last edited by Bones McCracker on Thu Oct 04, 2012 10:45 pm; edited 1 time in total

I noticed the jacket that was linked did not have elbow patches. I thought elbow patches were a basic requirement for a tweed jacket._________________The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.
George Orwell

I noticed the jacket that was linked did not have elbow patches. I thought elbow patches were a basic requirement for a tweed jacket.

The one above is more of a blazer or sports jacket which sometimes do have patches although purely for style. A hacking jacket like this is more of an authentic outdoors garment, something that was originally designed for rough wear and the odd mud spatter. The hacking jacket style is three buttons, thin collar, and an extra "ticket pocket" on the right hip. They button up higher than a blazer because they're meant to keep you warm, not show off. In an original design the collar will also roll up and fasten across the neck to keep the weather out. Everest was first climbed by mountaineers in tweed jackets - in a way the goretex of its day. Patches would serve a real function on a jacket like that.

Tweed really covers a huge range though. Some of it is rough and heavy, some lighter and finer. You get dull browns, greys and greens but also louder check patterns of which Bertie Wooster would be proud. It gets used in some very posh and finely-tailored clothing but also in simple, rugged jackets which can stand a bit of wear and tear.

It's a fabric with soul. Harris itself is a beautiful, peaceful place and the people have their own unique, gaellic culture. The cloth is not made by machine: the looms are set up and worked by hand using traditional methods. The socialist in me likes the idea of highly-skilled workers enjoying the fruits of their labours without some capitalist boss creaming off all the profits. Conservatives would probably start wittering on about enterprise and small business but what do they know. It's almost like there's a story woven into every piece of Harris tweed. Sometimes jackets are even handed down from father to son

PS: here's another gaellic psalm. It's a unique kind of half-improvised music which sometimes makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up - and I'm a hardened atheist. This would have crossed the Atlantic with early Scots settlers and played a part in the origins of American folk music - possibly gospel too with its challenge-response style.

PS: here's another gaellic psalm. It's a unique kind of half-improvised music which sometimes makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up - and I'm a hardened atheist. This would have crossed the Atlantic with early Scots settlers and played a part in the origins of American folk music - possibly gospel too with its challenge-response style.

Gaelic culture was the forbear of our Appalachian sub-culture (which you might know as "hillbillies"). They are the people of our Southeastern "red states". The folk music that originated from that region has a definite Scottish / Irish sound to it. It blended into other sounds: bluegrass, blues, what was once correctly called "rhythm and blues" (not the crap that people refer to as "R&B" today), "country", "country & western", "rock & roll", "southern rock", pop ballads, rock ballads, etc.. You can hear a hint of it in a lot of American music. Modern "folk" ballads still very much sound that way (listen to Nickle Creek, for example).

I have a theory that the multi-tonal sound of the bag-pipes was replicated by poor Scottish immigrants using multi-stringed dulcimers, along with "fiddles" and banjos. This blended with the one-stringed fretless "diddly bo" of African-American culture and their singular and striking melodic traditions, and together, those sounds became a new style of guitar music: what we would now call "folk music" and "blues". These overlapped, ultimately thrived and further evolved on the electric guitar, giving rise to rhythm & blues, and rock & roll, which became trans-Atlantic.

I don't think there was much, early on. So you wouldn't hear it in "pure" Appalachian folk music, and it would have been limited mostly to the slave states. Later (post-slavery) there was more blurring, cross-pollination, or fusion, as you will.

I saw some other, longer documentary once that described some woman's efforts long ago (early 1900s I think) to record this music. Back then, that meant writing it down. She had documented hundreds of songs, and then the place she was working out of burned. Others have made recordings, mostly of old people way up in the boondocks who still remember the old music, handed down generation to generation. Some of it's in youtube.

There was also a Twilight Zone episode about a young "rock-a-billy" star who was cruising the mountains trying to pick up a new melody to commercialize. He hears this young woman in the woods singing a beautiful and tragic ballad. He tries to get her to teach it to him, but she won't. He seduces her, and tells her he loves her and that they'll always be together, and she eventually reluctantly teaches him the song. Then he dumps her to leave, and the Ancestors come and cause him a painful death or insanity or something.

I think there's some truth in that tale, and that a lot of poor mountain folk and poor black folk were exploited in similar ways.